1. Science-based numeric nutrient standards are far more effective mechanisms for controlling pollution and measuring river health than narrative nutrient standards.
Numeric criteria allow detecting and reducing pollution before harm occurs, and judging waterway health with a high degree of accuracy. Conversely, under narrative standards, neither regulators or permittees will know harm is occurring until it’s too late, or for example, until algal blooms have covered a river bottom. Only then would a narrative prohibition against causing harmful pollution events be triggered.
2. Montana’s rivers are already degraded by nutrient pollution; eliminating numeric nutrient standards throws out the measuring stick for stopping harm before it occurs.
Montana DEQ’s latest Integrated Report has found that 35% of assessed river miles, or 7,231 miles, and 22% of assessed lakes are impaired by nutrients, making nutrients one of the most common causes for impaired waterways. Repealing numeric nutrient standards is likely to worsen pollution in already-impaired waterways, and push even more rivers and lakes toward impairment.
3. Montana’s rollback of numeric nutrient criteria, and EPA’s Oct. 3, 2025 approval, are based on politics, not best-available science.
Regulated entities have long pushed the false narrative that numeric criteria are impracticable because they need to meet numeric standards overnight, or that technology does not exist to satisfy numeric nutrient standards. Both of these allegations are false.
If a permittee cannot immediately meet standards, they must adopt a transparent and enforceable timeline for making measurable progress to improve water quality. Proven, existing technology exists today that can meet numeric nutrient criteria (let’s be honest, humans can live in space and we can certainly treatment nutrient-laden wastewater), and so too other treatment technologies combined with innovative reuse or disposal strategies (away from sensitive surface water) exist if we had the political will.
4. Montana doesn’t have a replacement narrative nutrient rule to work with.
The one section of Montana code (ARM 17.30.637) implementing narrative nutrient standards has never been successfully enforced to adequately regulate nutrient pollution and protect waterways from harm. One need look no farther than the DEQ’s own 2014 and 2016 Integrated Reports – the biannual compilation on impaired waters unable to maintain beneficial uses and health – to determine nutrient pollutants were a leading pollution cause of impairment despite DEQ only utilizing narrative criteria to regulate nutrients.
5. The costs of weak nutrient pollution controls will be borne by the environment, wildlife, ratepayers, and our outdoors economy.
The rollback of numeric criteria means permits previously determined to need improved pollution control will continue to stall on the basis of “revised” standards and the need to “reevaluate” conditions, leading to a tragic memorializing of status quo ante in pollution permitting. Nutrient contaminated rivers and streams undisputedly make public water supply, distribution, and treatment more costly for ratepayers. And lest we forget, Montana’s cold-water fisheries alone generate 1.3 BILLION annually in revenue. Those cold-water fisheries are dependent on clean, cold water, yet nutrient pollution is a leading cause of degradation of local water quality conditions for cold water fisheries.